Showing results by narrator "Zach" in All Categories

After a great deal of preparation, Danika begins her new digital dragon's life in a very small way. They say the "Living Jade Empire" creates individualized quests. They say it can read your mind. They say you can find your heart's desire. They say that there has never been a game like it, and they are right, but they are also wrong. The game is a data mine, built to retell the old tales that humans have been telling each other since language was invented.

Carla Bucchio never cared about things like boyfriends and SATs. If she did, maybe life at 20 would be more exciting than developing photos on Long Island. When she chooses the guitar over a social life, it only makes sense because no one talks to her anyway. Music may be Pete Albrecht's life but what good is his talent if he has no one to share it with? When he's not getting bitched about coffee at work, he's getting nagged about college by his girlfriend. What would they say if they really knew about him?

Xlina’s move to Portland, Maine was supposed to be the start of a new life. A normal life. One that didn’t involve her magical-duty-obsessed druid father or her own legacy as a descendant of the Baku: an ancient creature that consumes nightmares. But when the supposed social worker who pointed her toward Portland in the first place turns out to be not-so-human and puts a demon mark on Xlina’s soul, a normal life looks a lot less likely. To survive, she just might need to start listening to necromancer Oxivius, who wants her to embrace her power instead of running from it.

What is life to the full? Our souls long for a life that is full and flourishing, but so often it feels beyond our reach. Blinded by false rewards and temporary relief, we look to sources that promise happiness and wholeness. We attempt to fill our lives with more, increasing our pace and capacity, but accumulation doesn’t ever seem to satisfy. We see the circumstantial evidence that others might have found this sort of life, but we cannot seem to experience it for ourselves.

Ride the waves of feelings as Andy Junior shares his powerfully emotional experiences with his family of limited means and the crushing moment his childhood was abruptly interrupted. Discover the fear and heartache of abandonment thrust upon two very young and innocent brothers when they were placed in the care of the Polish community of nuns at the St. Joseph Home for Boys in 1960. From the eyes of a frightened youngster, Andy details the captivating events of his journey and the challenges he endured during his five years at the orphanage.

He might make her nerdy heart pound like the drums at one of his football games, but Quin needs to get over star quarterback, Cage Rucker. For one thing, he has a girlfriend. For another, she didn’t come to college to find a guy, even if he is sweet and kind, and volunteers with kids on the weekend. She has bigger plans. Unfortunately, those bigger plans require one thing she doesn’t have—the ability to talk to people. And who’s good at talking to people? Cage Rucker.

On what should have been a typical Monday morning in the business district of Starbanks, Rae Stevens and her coworkers are faced with a workday they'll never forget. Held captive inside the building they work with no explanation as to why, they band together to try and figure out what exactly is going on.

The band is eating at a cheap diner with the local club manager, making arrangements for the evening's gig, when they are attacked by a swarm of flying snakes. Adrian, the organ player and wizard, is bitten. Before he puts himself into a magical coma, face turning purple, he warns his band mates that they only have three hours to save him. Can the band find a cure before Adrian's time is up? Why is the town's preacher obsessed with the ancient Israelite serpent icon, the Nehushtan? And can the band get out of town before the snake god Apep arrives?

Traitor, prisoner, or both? Robert Maxwell is confronted with his past when Lila Patridge, his ex and the woman hell bent on killing The Waker, takes him prisoner. Upon arriving in Avalon, Robert learns that he is meant to be sacrificed in the name of Morgana. With his magic stripped, beaten, and bloody, can he find a way back to Pismo before he loses everything?

Early in the evening on July 18, 1959, Dr. Bernard Finch and his girlfriend, Carole Ann Tregoff, drove from their Las Vegas love-nest to the Finch home in the Los Angeles suburb of West Covina to speak to his wife Barbara about obtaining a speedy divorce in Nevada. But the plan went awry and the conversation turned deadly with Barbara’s lifeless body ending up in her in-laws’ backyard next door.

For as long as Enrandl can remember, everything he desired has come effortlessly to him. In his studies of the magical arts, he has always had a natural ability to channel magical energy. And when his mentor tries to change Enrandl’s views instead of teaching him more magics of the realms, killing him is easy, too.

Thirteen year-old Griffin Everson had always dreamed about magic, yet little did he know that his dreams would soon be a reality. Growing up without a family or a true home, Griffin had always stayed in the confines of fictional books as he circulated the foster care system. It was the only reprieve from his chaotic life. Soon, in the light of tragedy, Griffin's world changed faster than a turn of a page.

Benjamin Reilly is an aircraft mechanic working at Ontario International Airport. Eileen Rivera is an emergency room nurse working at Loma Linda University Hospital. Richard Clark is an inmate, serving year three of his 20-year sentence in Chino Prison. Follow the stories of these three Americans as they deal with the aftermath of the black hole paradox, which created the Blue Hole Radius.

This begins Mark Buchanan’s trilogy of novels vividly recreating the life and times of David, a man of many contradictions - poet, killer, God-lover, adulterer, brigand, fugitive, war hero. It’s a tale told through many eyes, those who love David and those who don’t, in details both intimate and epic. Three thousand years after he lived, David: Rise reminds us why he still captures our imagination and rivets our attention.

It’s been just three months since Detective “Mac” McAllister solved his first homicide case with the Oregon State Police. Now he’s working the search for a ski instructor who has mysteriously disappeared. The man’s parents claim their son wouldn't have committed suicide, but they suspect his girlfriend of something sinister.

With his newly minted detective badge, “Mac” McAllister reports for his first assignment with the Oregon State Police: a particularly gruesome homicide. It’s a headline case, as the victim - Megan Tyson - was brutally murdered mere weeks before her wedding. The investigation turns up far too many suspects and too little hard evidence. Why would the beautiful Megan, engaged to a wealthy businessman, be involved with the likes of long line-up of questionable characters that seem connected to her in more ways than one?

On paper, Coach Rob Mendez sounds like any other football coach on any other field across America: passionate, authoritative, knowledgeable. But he’s unlike any other coach you know - in fact, he’s probably unlike any other person you know. Born with an extraordinarily rare condition called tetra-Amelia syndrome, Rob has no arms or legs. He moves with the assistance of a custom-made, motorized wheelchair that he operates with his back and shoulders.

But the weather-beaten sailboat Chance Taylor and his father call home is thirty years old and hasn’t sailed in years. One step from both homelessness and hunger, Chance worries about things other kids his age never give a thought: Where will the money come for the electricity bill, grocery bill, and moorage fees? So when a new job falls his way, he jumps at the opportunity. He knows how much he will earn; what he doesn’t know is how much he will pay.

Time has no meaning. When the storms come, time, place, and world no longer matter. A ship of brave souls faces the ultimate battles as Lilith and her ilk prey upon men, slaughtering them if they are fortunate. And when the ships are tossed into the world of the Old Ones, there is a battle, unlike any other.

June, 2016, and pretty women are disappearing again. Just like they have been from the pristine Little Madrone River Valley every summer solstice day for the past hundred years. It all started in 1917, when blasting for the hydroelectric powerplant at the headwaters of the river, known by the locals as the Boneyard, uncovered a bizarre cliff of glittering iridescent rare earth metals.